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Two great justice-seekers, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones (1837) and Primo Levi (1919), were born on this date. Labor crusader Jones has become a progressive icon, Auschwitz survivor Levi a reminder that our greatest foe is our own tendency “to believe and act without asking questions.” WA

“The first thing is to raise hell,” said Jones, “that’s always the first thing to do when you’re faced with an injustice and you feel powerless.”

Levi spoke for the powerless, and depicted a startling vision of aurora so different from mine. “Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction.” Those of us fortunate enough to face each new day in freedom, graced with the gift of hope in the rays of a morning star, should be raising more hell.

I recently finished Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, a novel in the spirit of Primo Levi. It makes a subtler point: before raising hell, you have to see the injustice in front of you. “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever,” is a repeated refrain.

Also recently finished Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Bully Pulpit. TR was often a hell-raiser and usually a justice-seeker, if also a swaggering imperialist and “bully”; but as I read it the great heroes of this story were the “muckraking,” eye-opening journalists who shined light into dark corners. Ida Tarbell was a Mother Jones for her time. We need more like her now.

Birthday of Casey Stengel (1890), who said “there comes a time in every man’s life and I’ve had plenty of ’em,” and C. Northcote Parkinson (1909), whose eponymous law decrees the expansion of work “to fill the time available for its completion.”

Don’t I know it. I’d like to repeal that one, or amend it with a provision that the quality of work expands indefinitely to match extended time. That would not be necessary, if real deadlines were imposed. But those only work if they’re accurately anticipated and scrupulously enforced. Douglas Adams (1952-2001) said it best, before his own final deadline arrived (as they do) unannounced : “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” He must have said that before he died, Casey might have observed. Or Yogi.

newyorker.com

I was extolling the virtue of patience yesterday, of taking small steady steps towards the largest destinations and goals in our lives. But reflecting on deadlines, especially the big one at the end, challenges that mindset. Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011), when asked about his least favorite virtue, named (of course) “Faith. Closely followed, in view of the overall shortage of time, by patience.”

Another nice evening at the ballyard, with Older Daughter this time. Rooting for the home team is rough these days, but we’re patient fans. At least we got tee-shirts and a souvenir cup featuring former Cy Young winner Barry Zito, patiently working his way back to the bigs.

It’s the birthday of Democracy in America author Alexis de Tocqueville, the early 19th century French aristocrat who found America’s middle class possessed of sufficient “practical intelligence” to offset their vulgarity and ignorance and allow them to govern the new nation. WA

We tend to identify the middle class in terms of relative wealth and income, but if vulgarity and ignorance are the key markers there’s never been a larger middle class competing for political office in America than is represented by the current crop of presidential candidates. The vulgar and ignorant billionaire who makes the other “jackasses” (Lindsey Graham’s word) look good is, by this criterion, the most middle of them all. What would de Tocqueville say now? I imagine he’d be impatient with this bunch.

It’s also the birthday of the patient centenarian poet who said “it is out of the dailiness of life that one is driven into the deepest recesses of the self,” Stanley Kunitz. There’s a statement for our Hume group to ponder, given the skeptic’s dual commitment to dailiness and to metaphysical selflessness.

Dailiness, the everyday repetition of routine, the return to work, the renewal of purpose: my daily walk is a model and metaphor of that. Deep recesses? I might not choose those words to describe the experience derived from dailiness, and the word “self” might even be negotiable; but I know that without the scaffolding provided by repetition and routine, there would be no structural support for reflections on selfhood or anything else. That’s why I try to plug patiently away, day after day.

Looking forward to the David Hume course my cophilosophers and I are about to embark on. We’re so eager to get going, in fact, that we’ve already sort of begun. One of us has ventured the view that Hume was not a pragmatist.

He was a skeptical but not a radical empiricist in the sense intended by William James, one who notices not only the objects of phenomenal experience but also their conjunctive relations, as mirrored in the grammar of speech (“and,” “with,” etc.) but only partially articulated thereby. James thought Hume’s version left our experience chopped into bits, when in reality it flows in and through the interstices of nominative thought.

If Hume were right, James suggests, it’s as if that bird I’ve been watching flit about, here near my thinking porch, were visible only in the moments of arrested movement and I had to be skeptical about how he arrived at each successive stop. In fact, his flits and flights and hops and skips are continuous with his perchings. It’s part and parcel of his experience. The attentive birdwatcher sees this, where the intellectualist is tricked into missing it.

But not being a radical empiricist is one thing, not being a pragmatist another. Depends as always on how we define our terms, of course; but that famous Humean call to common life – “Be a philosopher, but be still a man” – is to me the epitome of a pragmatic sensibility. Acknowledging the impracticality, imprudence, and un-sociability of using reflective reason to cover one’s un-salubrious retreat from what the world calls “real life,” Hume knew when to remove his philosopher’s cap, drop the skeptical routine, and join his peers in a game over a pint.

His was the extrovert’s version of Thoreau’s definition of philosophy, as the ability to solve some of the problems of life not just theoretically but practically. I’ll be surprised if we students of Hume don’t end up agreeing that the most pressing practical problem, from both Hume’s and James’s points of view, is how to live happily and well. They’re both that kind of pragmatist.

Great time at the ballgame last night with my young friend from New Orleans who, attending only his second professional ballgame ever, was delighted to find that my home team was playing his. The Zephyrs from NOLA beat Nashville 9-7, and he tolerated my complaints about our relatively mild humidity. Down on the bayou the air’s thick as water, he says. We have no idea. Like William Carlos Williams’ crowd at the ballgame, the spectatorial spirit of uselessness delighted us too. David Hume (“be a philosopher but… be still a man”) would have approved.

It’s the birthday of a woman to whom I feel a real debt of gratitude, Elizabeth Hardwick (1916). She co-founded the New York Review of Books, dedicated to spotlighting “the unusual, the difficult, the lengthy, the intransigent, and, above all, the interesting.” I like the NYRB, but what I most thank Ms. Hardwick for is her earlier (1961) edition of The Selected Letters of William James. I first came across it as an undergraduate, rediscovered it in grad school, was charmed by the irrepressible humanity of its subject, and began a lifelong fascination with the philosopher who was capable even as a very young man of writing letters like this one to a despondent friend:

…It made me feel quite sad to hear you talk about the inward deadness and listlessness into which you had again fallen in New York. Bate not a jot of heart nor hope, but steer right onward. Take for granted that you’ve got a temperament from which you must make up your mind to expect twenty times as much anguish as other people need to get along with. Regard it as something as external to you as possible, like the curl of your hair. Remember when old December’s darkness is everywhere about you, that the world is really in every minutest point as full of life as in the most joyous morning you ever lived through; that the sun is whanging down, and the waves dancing, and the gulls skimming down at the mouth of the Amazon, for instance, as freshly as in the first morning of creation; and the hour is just as fit as any hour that ever was for a new gospel of cheer to be preached. I am sure that one can, by merely thinking of these matters of fact, limit the power of one’s evil moods over one’s way of looking at the Kosmos.

That was the tip of an iceberg I’m so happy I ran into. Thank you, Elizabeth Hardwick.

And then, the less peaceful drone of human nature returning to the office-

a soft continuous roarcomes out of the far valleyof the six-lane highway—thousandsand thousands of carsdriving men to work.

I can relate. From my dawn porch I too hear the occasional bark, caw, twang, and chirp. And, I hear that continuous roar of internal combustion, on I-40 a couple of miles away. “Soft”? Not the word I’d choose. Some days the sound is less invasive, that may have something to do with topography and the state of the atmosphere but probably more with the hearer’s state of mind and the poet’s prompt. Usually I tune out the roar. This morning I can’t. Thanks, Gary. Thanks, Henry Ford.

But it’s all nature, it’s all right here with us whether we’re attending or not. We’d better attend. It may be tolerable or ignorable, but it’s not sustainable.

Ford sold its first Model A on this date in 1903, a topless red two-seater that soared to the dizzying speed of 28 mph. (WA) It’s been life in the fast lane for humanity ever since, but as Rebecca Solnit says, faster’s not always better. “The indeterminacy of a ramble, on which much may be discovered, is being replaced by the determinate shortest distance to be traversed with all possible speed, as well as by the electronic transmissions that make real travel less necessary.” Less necessary, maybe, but no less rewarding.

Moving from Point A to Point B with rapidity is one thing, internal movement another. What is the optimal speed across a landscape, if you want to go far within? All motion is relative to its frame of reference, of course. Just remember that we’re standing on a planet that’s revolving at 900 mph, give or take. That should be dizzying, but we never notice.

Likewise, internal motion’s optimal locomotive frame is the one that falls away from notice. There was a time when the passenger train, indeed, was a great engine for thought – occasional catastrophic train-wrecks excepted. Running on smooth and sturdy rails, creating its own interior space, I would gladly trade my Corolla for a daily commute on a commercial steam locomotive.

That’s not a present option, nor (at forty miles out) is the bicycle. But since re-committing to a daily fitness ride earlier this summer, I’ve found two wheels increasingly conducive to the flow of ideas. When I want to file one for future reference I pull from my pocket the voice recorder that doubles as a phone (etc.) and spit it out. One hand on the rudder’s not optimal, though, so it keeps those memos short.

Walking to work would be best, if only the workplace were always within range. That’s why summer’s such a good season for me, when I walk to work every single day like Henry. And bike. If he’d come along just a little later, I’ll bet he would’ve too. Bear on a bicycle, why not?

One reason, perhaps. Solnit again: “I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.”

Birthday of Edward Hopper (1882), who said “all I ever wanted to do was to paint sunlight…” (WA)

In these early hours of day, that’s a worthy ambition. I’d do it myself, if I had any aptitude for painting. Words don’t capture the light, but once in a while they reflect it in unexpected ways. So I carry on.

Perseverance, putting down one word and then another and then another, and then circling back with pencil and eraser and delete key – that’s a simple mirror of the steady routine involved in perambulating and in pedaling, one foot in front of the other, legs up and down, wheels round and round. Take breaks and breathers as required but don’t quit. Do it again tomorrow. Keep a’goin.’

William James criticized David Hume for a “half-hearted” empiricism…

(Is this relevant? I never know, unless and until my subconscious informs me later, so I’d better just go ahead and put it down. Words work that way, like tracks or traces in the mist to pick up later. Or not.)

James thought Hume didn’t get at the roots of our experience, didn’t persist to notice the everyday “powers” that produce our confident common-sense expectation of the dawn and all that follows, billiard balls knocking predictably into pockets, people generally behaving with kind sentiment and fellow-feeling, moments transitioning to moments like a flowing stream, particles of experience coalescing into practical knowledge and life wisdom. He noticed these phenomena but did not fully credit their value, and so became a skeptic and not a radical empiricist. He didn’t, James thought, go the distance.

A whole-hearted empiricist is all in, noticing connections others miss (like “and” and “or” and “but” as particles not just of speech but of experienceable reality, said James) and boldly risking error in pursuit of happiness and truth. “Our [intellectual] errors are not such serious things.” The verdict on that isn’t all in. But with a whole heart you persevere.

Hume’s friend Franklin said our sun is rising, not yet setting. Thoreau said it’s but a morning star. If Hume was too skeptical and old-worldly, maybe the American “radicals” weren’t skeptical enough. But the great thing about sunrise is its implicit promise: if you persevere, light will be cast.

Hemingway, noteworthy here if only for the splendid title of his first novel, was born on this date in 1899. The Sun Also Rises would be a decent name for a blog. But I wouldn’t want to emulate his bullfighting sexist lifestyle, or the manner in which he ended it. I’m not crazy about his writing style either.

It’s also the birthday of a later and (to my taste) more admirable American writer, John Gardner (1933). Sunlight Dialogues could name this blog too. I recall reading his novel Mickelsson’s Ghosts early in grad school because it was rumored (probably falsely) to be modeled on one of my new teachers, an eccentric distinguished philosopher. Most philosophers don’t believe in ghosts, but this one (the fictional character and his alleged template) did. And does, so far as I know. I believe in human spirits too; but mine are alive in the natural world.

Gardner’s Art of Fiction made me want to write a novel myself. Still do. He wrote, possibly with Hemingway in mind:

To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write […] so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write […] so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on.

And,

Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original, if not profound.

Gardner’s On Moral Fiction took a hard line against art for art’s sake:

In a world where nearly everything that passes for art is tinny and commercial and often, in addition, hollow and academic, I argue–by reason and by banging the table–for an old-fashioned view of what art is and does…

It confronts despair and emboldens the reader to get up and face the sun another day. In fairness, lots of ultimately-suicidal writers (like Papa Hemingway) did that too, before despair got the better of them. We all have to take life one day at a time.

I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Up@dawn 2.0

Up@dawn was launched in April 2009. Its mirror & successor as of June 2013 is Up@dawn 2.0: http://jposopher.blogspot.com/

The new site is a successor in several senses. It will bear whatever initial revisions it may occur to me to make in my dawn posts. The old site will thus stand as an uncorrected, unvarnished record of dawn's earliest light, as I've reflected it, and of my earliest daily errors. "Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things," as James said in "Will to Believe."

So, the two sites may also stand together as a record of their fallible author's occasional correction and growth. "If I get up every day with the optimism that I have the capacity for growth, that's success for me." (Paula Scher)

Both sites will remain dedicated to the Thoreauvian proposition that morning "is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.”

And as for versions 3.0 and beyond? My intent is that they will one day pop up between hard covers.

Two great justice-seekers, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (1837) and Primo Levi (1919), were born on this date. Labor crusader Jones has become a progressive icon, Auschwitz survivor Levi a reminder that our greatest foe is our own tendency "to believe and act without asking questions." WA“The first thing is to raise hell,” said Jones, " […]

Birthday of Casey Stengel (1890), who said "there comes a time in every man's life and I've had plenty of 'em," and C. Northcote Parkinson (1909), whose eponymous law decrees the expansion of work "to fill the time available for its completion."Don't I know it. I'd like to repeal that one, or amend it with a provi […]

Another nice evening at the ballyard, with Older Daughter this time. Rooting for the home team is rough these days, but we're patient fans. At least we got tee-shirts and a souvenir cup featuring former Cy Young winner Barry Zito, patiently working his way back to the bigs. And we got to see an old Dodger, Jim "Junior" Gilliam, warmly remember […]

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Who’s up

I'm an early-rising philosophy prof at a large state university in Tennessee, with interests in American philosophy (especially William James and John Dewey), in humanism/naturalism/atheism, in science and exploration, in walking & cycling & baseball, in literature, in pop culture, in the pursuit of happiness, and in the perpetual dawn of day.

Great advice to young philosophy students as well....have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is t […]

We've still not expunged the name of Forrest Hall at my school, named for the confederate firebrand who lent his support to the founding of the KKK. Letters and editorials have been and will be written, violent confrontation is no solution, but Woody has a point: polemic and satire carry you only so far, when Nazis and other white supremacists are invol […]

Hume was a gregarious freethinking bon vivant, Thoreau an introspective solitary naturalist. But both were committed more to solving life's practical problems than the merely theoretical puzzles that so perplex some philosophers. Hume himself, when perplexed, typically found a pub for distraction. Thoreau usually took a hike.Most of the luxuries, and ma […]

Morning air!

...let me have a draught of undiluted morning air. Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in this world. -Thoreau

Why write?

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. -HDT

Morning

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,
then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?
This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—
maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,
dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,
and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.
-Billy Collins

Strong coffee, whanging sun, skimming gulls

How at the mercy of bodily happenings our spirit is. A cup of strong coffee at the proper moment will entirely overturn for the time a man's view of life. Our moods and resolutions are more determined by the condition of our circulation than by our logical grounds. *** Remember when old December's darkness is everywhere about you, that the world is really in every minutest point as full of life as in the most joyous morning you ever lived through; that the sun is whanging down, and the waves dancing, and the gulls skimming down at the mouth of the Amazon, for instance, as freshly as in the first morning of creation; and the hour is just as fit as any hour that ever was for a new gospel of cheer to be preached. I am sure that one can, by merely thinking of these matters of fact, limit the power of one's evil moods over one's way of looking at the cosmos. -William James

Last Days of Socrates
Usefully annotated and hyperlinked edition of Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo.

Pale Blue Dot: a vision of the human future in space
Carl Sagan’s spiritual vision of our future. He likes William James’s definition of religion, ” a feeling of being at home in the universe.” But “if we mean the real universe, then we have no true religion yet.”

Too big to fail

I've learned that available tools apparently do not at present allow the migration of a blog this size to the Blogger platform, where I also have a virtual presence with Delight Springs (delightsprings.blogspot.com) and others.
But should this site ever fall inactive for an extended, unacknowledged length of time, its author very likely has succumbed to holiday fever, diagnosed illness, death, or technological incapacity beyond his limited computational proficiencies. In the latter (relatively-happier) event, look for Up@dawn's reincarnation at: http://jposopher.blogspot.com.
Phil
Up@dawn